Well-Intentioned

Lance's expression turned pensive. "I think--no, I know--that we both kind of got caught up in the whole 'keeping up with the Joneses' thing. For me, it was trying to prove that I could meet the financial obligations that we'd foolishly taken on. I was the one that pushed for us to move into that house instead of a smaller one, because I thought the gravy train was never going to end.

"Then, when it did... well, I saw all these other folks--all these other men--managing to make their way through the recession while making it look easy. It stung my pride that Nora needed to reach out to our neighbors for tips on how to make ends meet, and it made me feel... inadequate, I guess, that she seemed to get through this all with such aplomb.

"This was before she cheated, mind. They turned her into... what did she call it? Superwife? And I was just getting fatter and more tired and more desperate. When she started doing the personal trainer thing, it got worse; I knew that... I mean, yeah, she's great at that, but I also knew her clients were mostly a bunch of horndogs that wanted to ogle her as much as they wanted to work out. Maybe more. So I felt like I was... almost pimping her out."

Lance chuckled. "I didn't say any of this at the time, though. I should have talked to her, but I didn't. Maybe if we'd been listening to the right people, we would have, but..."

His face went grim. "That fucking neighborhood. I can't blame them for everything that happened. Nora tried to for a while, just like she tried to blame you, and she tried to blame me. I can blame them for a lot of it, though, and for the things that came before. Moving there was the worst decision we ever made. Everyone was so goddamned helpful, and pretty much always in the worst ways they could have been."

He nodded at me. "You didn't see much of that until the end, I don't think. Most of their advice for you turned out well. If you'd stuck around until you had a long-term girlfriend, though, or God forbid, a wife, I think you might have ended up like us. We were supposed to be a team, but their advice, and our willingness to listen to it..."

He was right. Up until the end, their advice to me had mostly seemed good. "How do you mean?"

Lance leaned forward once more, slightly over the table, head inclined towards me. "Let me ask you a question: outside of the barbecues or the parties, how often did you see the men and women of King's Forest mixing together? The Alvarezes' canasta night, the bowling team that Bill Redomnd started... anything else?"

I thought about it for a moment. "Nnno, I don't think so."

"Right. The husbands and wives were almost never in the same room together, and even when they were... Think back to the barbecues. There'd be the sort of meet and greet as everyone came in where the couples would go around together, the same when they left, and then in between, the guys stayed with the guys and the gals stayed with the gals. They thought it was weird that I wanted to be around Nora so much, and I heard a couple jokes about how much you helped out in the kitchen and the like. Or did you not notice that?"

"I did, but I didn't think much of it. I mean, my folks... Well, they could be like that, too. I was kinda used to it. It just seemed silly to me, and no one said much about it directly to me, so..."

He nodded. "Trust me: if you'd gotten married? They'd have started being a lot more forceful about it. I think since you were the youngest, they still thought of you as a kid, and kids are allowed to help with the 'women's work.'"

After mulling that over for a moment, I agreed. "Yeah, I can see that being true. I remember, at poker nights or whatever, how much... Man, some of them really did not seem to like their wives. Or respect them, for that matter. I tried to think of it as just jokes back then, like maybe I was being too sensitive, but..."

"I hear you. And according to Nora? The women were even worse. They all talked about how men needed to be treated like children and tricked into going along with their wives' wishes or bribed with sexual favors. That the wife should never directly ask for what they wanted, instead doing what 'needed' to be done and then smoothing things over later if needed."

He snorted. "God, that Julia fucking Alvarez took that attitude to an extreme. Did you know she actually encouraged Nora to cheat on me after she walked in on her and that shithead? 'He doesn't need to know, as long as he's happy.' What a pile of shit.

"I get Bob's reasoning for trying to cover it all up, given that sob story of his. Mary's, too. Even the ones like Sam Henderson, where they fucked their own lives up and didn't want to see that kind of fallout for us. I don't agree with a single one of them, but I get it. But do you have any idea how many of the women either said 'get what you need to' or looked the other way before it came to a head? Not that some of the guys were much better; they were just quieter about their own affairs."

He sat for a moment, collecting his thoughts, then said, "You know what's really fucked up, though?"

"What?"

"I think, for the most part, they meant well. It's what they were taught, it's what kept their marriages together--no matter how much they bitched about their spouses--and it's what they thought would be best for us. I think some of it was generational, and some of it was just fucked up interpersonal dynamics, but almost none of them were, like, intentionally evil. None of them were playing with our lives to play with our lives.

"Look at Bob Grayson, for example; I know he carried a ton of angst over all of this. He sought me out a few years after it all went down and almost fell down on his knees begging me to forgive him for what he'd done. I'd had just enough therapy by then to be able to accept his apology, and when I did, it was like the Pope had blessed him. He really did mean well. Most of them did; some were just covering their own asses, but the others really thought this was the best way to help us. How fucked up is that?"

"Pretty fucked up," I acknowledged.

Lance laughed, "Yeah. Yeah." His smile turned sad. "I really loved her, you know? God, if I could change any one thing, it would be for us to have never moved there. But we did, and we tried to keep up with the Joneses--her by being Superwife and me by turning into Captain Workaholic even after things got better with my company--and we stopped being a team. We were even, in some kind of fucked up way, competing with each other. All we had to do was talk, really talk, and maybe..."

He shook his head. "Ah, well. It is what it is. If we hadn't moved there, then we probably never would have gotten divorced, and I never would have met Kylie." Lance held up his left hand and wiggled the ring on its fourth finger. "And then I wouldn't have Alex or Samantha. Might-have-beens aren't ever going to make you happy, you know? My wife does, though, and my kids do. Hell, even Nora does now; once we got our shit straightened out in family counseling. She's been a completely fantastic co-parent, and her and Kylie get along great."

I sat there shocked for a moment, then stammered out, "Really? That's... Wow, that's amazing."

He laughed at my reaction. "I know. It sounds nuts, but it's true. It took her some time to come around to really accepting her role in all this, but once she did... Well, that's where the name change came from. 'Nora' is so disgusted by what 'Ella' did that she can't stand the name anymore. She's not, like, dissociative or anything; she owns what she did. But she needed a way to leave the past in the past, and that was a good place to start.

"Even before that, though, she really did her best to make amends. Once she got it through her head that the advice she'd followed had brought her to this, she stopped listening to the women who told her the way to get me back was to threaten my business. It's such a dumb idea anyways; it's not like I owned a factory or a mechanic shop or anything. The only assets she could have sold were... what? My contact list? A couple of laptops? Just another example of the silly notions they put in her head.

"We came up with an equitable split. It hurt me financially, but Nora didn't want to put the screws to me. She never hated me, you know? She was just hurt that... Well, I'm sure you've probably heard some variation of it in the recent past."

I mimicked Caitlyn in a singsong voice, ''Why can't we move past this? It was just sex. I only loved you.'"

Snorting, Lance admitted, "Yeah, that sounds pretty familiar. Anyways, once she did get past that stage, we worked together for a while to make her more self-sufficient, to take her personal trainer gig and turn it into something more professional, more full-time. In turn, she started being more flexible on things like visitation and alimony. Give and take, you know?

"Nowadays, our lives... Well, they're not separated, and they never will be. I'm still paying child support, but I would never have shirked that anyways. Sometimes we have a difference of opinion about this or that for one of the kids, but even then, eh. Hunter's eighteen now, and Zoe's just turned sixteen. They kind of have their own opinions, too, and we try to listen. That's made things easier. But, honestly, I think we probably get along better now than we did for most of our marriage."

"What about having to deal with a stepdad? Did she ever remarry?"

A familiar voice answered from behind me. "No, I never did. Lance set the bar pretty high." Two women brushed past, one leaning over to kiss Lance on the top of the head and the other taking the seat next to mine. "Hey, Doug. Long time no see."

If Lance had worn the additional years well, Ella--no, Nora--might as well not be wearing them at all. She looked amazing. If I was just meeting her for the first time, I could have easily believed she was thirty-five, tops, instead of her actual early forties. She still had that firm fitness instructor body, too, although today she wore a sundress rather than the yoga mom gear.

"Uh, yeah. It's... good to see you?"

Nora laughed at the statement I'd unintentionally phrased as a question, a gently mocking smile on her face as she retorted, "It's good to see you, too?" Then her expression and her tone shifted to one of gratitude mixed with relief. "God, it really is good to see you, Doug. I have... just, God, so much I want to say to you. When Lance texted us that you two were here, Kylie and I rushed right over."

Lance interjected, "Doug, this is my wife, Kylie."

A slender, pretty woman about his age with dark brown hair smiled and waved as she sat next to him. "I've heard a lot about you, Doug. Lance has always spoken so highly about you and what you did for him--" She nodded at Nora. "--For them."

"It's nice to meet you, too." Her words suddenly sunk in. "Wait, really?" I turned to look at Lance's ex-wife. I understood his thanks, but hers?

Nora chimed in, "Yes, Doug, really. I know..." She bit her lip, a penitent expression on her face. "God, I know I was so shitty to you back then, even before... before that night at our house. Putting you in that position was just so wrong. I can't thank you enough for standing up and doing what was right when no one else would."

She chuckled, then said, "I mean, I wanted to kill you that night, and for quite a while after, too, but now? I can't begin to tell you how grateful I am. I think about what might have happened if you'd agreed to what I suggested, or even if you just kept my secret, and..." She shuddered. "Thank you. Really, from the bottom of my heart, thank you."

I breathed out, too stunned to speak and beyond choked up. For over a decade, I considered that night to be one of the greatest failures of my life, and now, here sat the people whose lives I thought I'd irrevocably damaged, thanking me profusely. Finally, I managed, "Thank you for saying that." Tears started to form in my eyes, and I angrily swiped them away. With the divorce, and missing my kids, and everything else going on in my life, this sudden change in fortunes was more than I could handle. "I- I, uh... I really needed a win right now."

A chorus of "Hey, it's going to be okay," and "Really, I mean it," and all sorts of other affirmations from the three of them didn't exactly help with my attempt at a stoic demeanor, but I kept it together. It was a narrow thing.

The women had just finished their shopping and wanted lunch, so we all occupied that table for another hour. It seemed so unreal, sitting with these two people I was sure would want to kill me and probably each other, talking and laughing and trading tips about how to survive my newly divorced status.

Trading gossip, too. Apparently, once the scales fell away from Nora's eyes, she went scorched earth on the King's Forest power couples. At the last barbecue before she moved away, a place she knew they'd all be, she came loaded for bear with every single dark secret, piece of gossip, nasty accusation, and vague rumor that she'd heard in her time there.

More than a few rounds in that parting volley landed. Within a year, a half-dozen more For Sale signs appeared around the sleepy little neighborhood, most of them due to the community property laws in our state's divorce statutes.

Maybe I should have felt better about that. Vindicated. Instead, it made me a little sad. I'd had years to nurse a grudge after how they'd treated me, and I did. But I also remembered everything they did for me, too, before things went bad. I remembered the poker nights and the fishing trips, the barbecues and the Christmas party at the Graysons'.

What they did, to Lance and Ella and to me, was wrong; I felt more sure of that than ever. But so much of what they did was right, too. They welcomed me into their community and made me a better person in many respects. Their ways had worked for them; why wouldn't they want to impart them to a younger generation?

But they didn't work, did they? They seemed to work, but only if the world never changed. Only if Dorothy didn't look behind the curtain and find the Wizard to be just an old man making things up as he went along. Only if the Drifter didn't come to town and hold them accountable for the sins they were willing to overlook in order to pretend that the façade was real.

The ladies finished their lunch, and we all headed out, promising to keep in touch. Lance gave me the number for the family counselor that had helped him and Nora navigate their post-divorce lives. Nora gave me a kiss on the cheek before we parted and a wistful smile as she got in her car.

The day after our meeting, she texted me. Nothing big, just a How are you doing? To check on me. That text led to more, then to a phone conversation a few days later, which led to more. We danced around the topic of our time at King's Forest at first, with her instead focusing on helping me get through my new normal.

She came by a few weeks later and invited me to an impromptu dinner. Why was she "just in the neighborhood," as she put it, when she lived two towns and forty-five minutes away? "To have dinner with an old friend."

We didn't try to rebuild our old friendship, though. That would have been impossible. Twelve years later, we were both different people, especially Nora. She wanted almost nothing to do with the person she'd been back then, holding onto most of her memories from that time only as cautionary tales about losing sight of what mattered.

Instead, we tore the whole thing down and started over, like razing a building to the foundation in order to make something better. Long conversations, some that ended in tears, tore us down. Nora had embraced radical honesty to distance herself from Ella, telling the truth even when it hurt her to do so in order to avoid causing more pain later. She encouraged me to do the same, and I found it surprisingly freeing.

Time spent together, getting to know the new us, built a sturdy framework. Sometimes something ugly came out of it, leaving us too angry to speak to each other for days, but when we cooled down, it always left us with a more honest understanding of who we were and what we wanted out of our friendship. And, as was often the case with this kind of teardown-and-rebuild, picking through the rubble of the old structure turned up bits and pieces that we wanted to keep, ones that held a special beauty or sentiment to us.

The years since we'd last seen each other had made us into a pair that fit together like a lock and a key. Nora had parlayed her personal training business into a small gym of her own, so we could talk about all the kinds of things that only small business owners have to deal with. We both had kids, hers almost grown and mine still barely school-aged.

And, of course, we were both divorced. She helped me navigate post-divorce life, giving me insights into what Caitlyn was thinking and why she acted how she did. My ex-wife did ultimately go to counseling with me, and Nora helped me cope with some of the revelations that came out there: how the agency Caitlyn worked for had always been rife with adultery, but she'd hidden it from me; the way her admiration for striking out on my own eventually turned to resentment at feeling stuck in a job she didn't enjoy; her anger at me for taking such a black-and-white stance on infidelity, since she was certain she'd have been more "mature" if I'd strayed.

It took a while, but Caitlyn eventually took responsibility for her actions. Some, anyways. She budged more on visitation, eventually admitting that she could use the help. I wouldn't say that I became a fixture in my old home, but I also wasn't banned from it, either.

I'd chosen a condo nearby, so Caitlyn agreed to let the kids stay on a weeknight once in a while, then a few more, and then a few more, which eventually turned our arrangement into something closer to a fifty-fifty split than the "two weekends a month, two months during the summer" plan the judge originally assigned us.

Through all this, my friendship deepened with Nora, but we didn't try to be more than friends for quite some time; didn't try, but ended up there anyways. A little too much wine, a slow dance that outlasted the music, a kiss that started in the living room but ended in the bedroom. Incredible sex that night, the best I'd probably ever had. Regrets the next morning. Distance the following week. A repeat not too long after.

It was great. It was terrible. It was everything we wanted and everything we were afraid of, all bundled into one. I worried that deep down Nora was still Ella; she did, too. Nora was afraid I'd never really trust her; I was too.

During the intermission of the third go-round of the "Doug and Nora Fuck and Ghost Show," we laid in bed together without speaking. She broke the silence first. "I don't want to do this."

"This?"

"Us. Like this." Nora pushed herself up on one elbow. "I... I love you. I think you love me, too. I want to be with you. But, hon, we have too much baggage. More than we seem capable of handling. Where do we go from here? Dating? Married? What happens when we fight one morning and I come home too late that day? Are you going to wonder if..." She shook her head.

"I haven't been with anyone in a long, long time, and I'm so glad that I've had this... thing with you, whatever it is. I'm glad that... Well, that I've gotten to be with you. But if there's no future in us, I can't keep doing it. I just can't. It breaks my heart every time, and it's no good for you, either. We should stop before we wreck what we do have."

A pause that lasted just a little too long said everything that needed to be said.

--

I'm lying awake in the dark now, too jetlagged to sleep. The noises of an unfamiliar city woke me an hour ago, and my own internal clock has kept me from slumber. Two days after I got off the plane, I still haven't quite settled; home is literally half a world away, and I should be having lunch, not staring at the ceiling.